How to: Ribbon Wall

Many months ago, I was spending a lot of time figuring out what exactly I wanted my wedding to look like. I’m not a very traditional person, other than the whole getting married at 23 thing. There will be no bridesmaids, religion, garter belts, flowers, cake or bouquet throwing to be had at my nuptials (and please don’t try to convince me otherwise – believe me, I’ve heard it all). As I found some elements I liked across the web, I realized projects involving ribbon always caught my eye. I decided to Google “wedding ribbon wall” to see if anyone had ever made an entire wall out of ribbon, and guess what? A bunch of people did, and they look really cool.

 

I toyed with the idea of incorporating a ribbon wall in to my ceremony arch, but settled on using the ribbon wall for a photo booth backdrop (I also used the wall as the background for a how to video I recently shared). Putting this together was super simple.

Suppiles

2 48″-long dowels, 7/8″ thick

spray paint (optional)

sewing machine/needle and thread/liquid stitch (choose one)

several yards of ribbon in whatever colors, widths, etc. you want

Directions

Spray paint your dowels and set them aside to dry (optional).

For my wall, I cut my ribbon in to pieces 6.5 feet long. Since I used ribbon ranging in width from 7/8 to 1.5 inches, I did a little math to see how many pieces I would need to cover the 48-inch wide dowel. I ended up needing about 6 pieces of each of the 6 types of ribbon I was using.

The reason the pieces need to be 6-and-a-half feet long is to accommodate this next step. Fold over each end of a piece of ribbon 1.5 inches and pin in place. Make sure the side you’ll want hidden is facing the same direction on each end of your ribbon. Using your preferred method of sewing, sew your ribbon in place. Repeat this process until all of your ribbon pieces are sewn.

After your dowels are completely dry, string your ribbons on them. Even though I knew I could get away with just one dowel, I used two because I’ll need to transport my ribbon wall in a car. I wanted to be able to roll up my wall like a scroll and unroll it just as easily the day I decorate my wedding venue. For now, here’s the fiance mugging it up in front of our future photobooth backdrop.